Abysian Yes, Black Forest No
I emerge now fat and thickly chuffed with victory hard-won in a game where I played Abysia. Seeing 109 devils take on my human opponent's 12 iron dragons is not a sight I will forget in a hurry. The iron dragons actually won, but 6 of them died, and in another 2 turns I'd have been back with ANOTHER 125 devils. Maybe more.
I learned much in this game. So I wish to put forward that of all the races I have tried so far, Abysia is clearly, hands-down, the greatest blood-magic nation. And they have one key advantage if you want to run a Soul Contract economy: You don't have to study blood magic at ALL. Demonbred are the perfect generals for devil armies. Each one can lead about 35, moves the same 3 provinces flying overland, and can even provide magical backup. You are free to research Construction independently of everything else until you can cast the all-important Forge of the Ancients. Then you go to town.
To my vast amusement, I was transporting contracts via lab to my frontier at the other end of the map, and slapping them on cheap human priests. With the gate stone, the archdevil that I needn't have bothered with could zap over there to pick the devils up when my nearer frontier was threatened.
Now to put this in contrast with the new blood nation - Black Forest Ulm. Ugh. Painfully weak. Your blood mages aren't that good, so they really don't blood hunt too well. Your armies are more expensive and not as strong as Abysia's, so you don't conquer provinces as well to get your blood economy going. Worst of all, you're stuck with a Death rating. Death is the BANE of blood magic. Heck, unless you're running on necro-priests, I find a Death rating to be a real killer in general. Black Forest Ulm finds itself rapidly facing dwindling resources and self-imposed attrition. Not cool at all. Yeah, the vampire count is nice, but he's not THAT nice. You have no endgame as Black Forest. If the world is rich, maybe you can afford to play those ghoul guardians, but if it's not, you're utterly dependent on vampires that will only take you so far. And research? Forget it. You don't have the money for mages, because everyone's dying and your troops are ugly upkeep.
Abysia, on the other hand, can easily afford a nice +2 growth with its +3 heat, and watch blood-farmed provinces actually *grow*.
Thus I register my feelings on the ongoing 'who makes the best blood race' debate.
Oh, and Abysians even get all-important Astral magic.
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